


Days Owned by the Sunshine

by Mia_Zeklos



Series: Steven Moffat Appreciation Week [4]
Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-14
Updated: 2014-11-14
Packaged: 2018-02-25 08:42:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2615465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mia_Zeklos/pseuds/Mia_Zeklos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If there's one lesson Mels has already learnt, it's that she has to take care of her parents as much as they have to take care of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Days Owned by the Sunshine

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Day Four of the Steven Moffat appreciation week challenge – ‘favourite friendship’ and I chose Rory/Mels/Amy. More characters I haven’t really written until now, and I’m nervous about the characterisation yet again, so I’d love to hear what you think.

It was funny, Mels decided, just how easy it was for the winds to change, especially if one was living in a small town. She’d done something good for once and suddenly, she wasn’t the local menace but a hero that hadn’t been given the chance to shine until now. It would be funny if it wasn’t so alien.

 

She smiled as she stretched on the sun bed outside her foster parents’s house and enjoyed the sunlight she could soak up while the sky was clear – not that it was very warm outside yet, but with her body temperature, she could manage just fine even in the early April. All of the extra attention had been flattering, if unasked for, and she had enjoyed the change from the locals shouting at her to praising her, but now she rather wanted to be alone.

 

A sigh left her lips when she felt someone’s shadow over her and realised that she’d be denied the opportunity.

 

Mels opened her eyes and looked up to see that it was Rory towering over her. “What is it?” She drawled and he apparently saw it as an invitation, because he sat down on the edge of the sun bed next to her and Mels felt obliged to sit up. Everything on his face was saying that he wanted to talk to her and of course she’d be here for him – she always was – but right now she didn’t feel up for anything that involved a lot of emotional investment; not after the day she’d had.

 

“Hi,” he greeted nervously and Mels scoffed impatiently. He always did that, no matter that they’d known each other for almost ten years now. She wondered how exactly it had been that the three of them had ended up clicking so well together when they were all so different.

 

The three of them. Which gracefully lead him to the probable topic at hand.

 

“Hey,” she said in return, then went on quickly before he tried to make his own conclusions. “She’s fine. I think that Doctor Johnson’s with her now; he said he’d give her something for ‘the shock’.” Her fingers made quotes in the air and Rory nodded sympathetically. If there was someone in this town who actually knew Amy, it was the two of them, and they knew that she wasn’t shocked easily. If at all.

 

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about, actually,” Rory went on and Mels wasn’t the least bit surprised that her suspicions had been proven to be true. People would come and go, the world would change, and there would always be Rory to make sure that there was enough predictability left in the world. “I wanted to thank you. I heard that you’ve risked your life–”

 

“No biggie,” she assured him and Rory waved her off – it wouldn’t be the first time she’d risked her life, after all, and she always acted like it wasn’t all that big of a deal – mostly because it wasn’t, and she wanted to have at least one thing she was honest about when it came to them. Oh, if he could only realise just how much truth there was in her words... “No, really, it’s fine. You know that I’d do anything for the two of you.”

 

“It was stupid of her to get up there,” Rory grumbled and Mels swung her legs off of the sun bed and sat down next to him, the grass under her feet tickling her. It was days like this one that usually convinced her that the other, darker part of her life was nothing but a figment of her imagination, just like the school psychiatrist had assured her when she’d been eight and had told him that her imaginary friend told her to kill people. Days like that were entirely owned by the sunshine and the sensory overload that usually came with spring, and the laughter and even sometimes the risky situations, like the one she’d taken Amy out of today. She loved those days and hated them in the same time, because the illusion fell apart in the moment she realised that the two best friends she loved more than anything were in fact her parents. “She could have died.”

 

Mels fidgeted a bit on her place and Rory sent her a suspicious look which she immediately tried to avoid. Seventeen or not, her father was still her father in every sense of the word, and as annoying she found it when he mother henned her along with Amy, she was still not-so-secretly thrilled by it. “It might have been my fault. Sort of,” she added hastily when his glare pinned her back into her place. “I said that I’d only got there once and that it was impossible for anyone else to do it.”

 

“Mels!” Rory groaned, exasperated, and hid his face in his palms, only to look back at her again seconds later. “What were you thinking? You know she wouldn’t resist the challenge!”

 

“I know, I know,” Mels muttered, still avoiding his eyes. It wasn’t easy to admit, even in front of herself, that Amy climbing up the school facade – using the help of the windows once or twice, much to the administration’s horror – to get to the top. For Mels, it had been easy as anything – after all, she frequently got more training in everything than she could ever possibly need – but for Amy, it had been quite the challenge and, predictably, she’d fell down as soon as she got to the place where the wall was smooth and there were no windows nearby to help her. Much to everyone’s relief, though, Mels had been close enough to catch her as she fell and there was nothing really wrong with her other than the places where the wall had scratched her palms and she was a bit shaken – and, for now, kept firmly away from her friends as a punishment of sorts from her mother. “I didn’t think she’d actually do it. And when she got going– I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s fine.” She allowed Rory the hug he offered and then hesitantly wrapped her arms around him to press him closer. “And don’t you dare doing it again yourself, either. I’m tired of worrying about you.”

 

“It wouldn’t be me if you weren’t worrying about me,” she assured him, tone serious and business-like, until Rory nodded, just as solemn.

 

“I suppose you’re right,” he conceded and finally, Mels let herself laugh.

 

It wasn’t always easy being here with her parents; especially not with the life she had lurking on the edge of her mind worrying her ever so often and Madam’s constant repeating that the time was coming for her to do what she had to. Not easy, but definitely worth it.


End file.
